


nothing like two girls sticking together

by andchaos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 11:52:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7573075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parvati and Lavender through the years.</p><p> </p><p>
  <i><br/>“There’s someone for you, Lavender,” Parvati hushed. “You’re gonna be it for someone, I promise. Somewhere out there, someone is going to want to pick you first. Every time.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Lavender’s head fell back against Parvati’s headboard, and she was all pressed up against Parvati’s side still. Her hand found Parvati’s and threaded through it, her fingers warm and trembling.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Nobody ever has,” Lavender whispered. “Except…Only you, Parvati. Only you.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Parvati’s breathing quavered. She only hoped that Lavender couldn’t hear it. Her heart stuttering, Parvati raised their hands and ventured to press a kiss against the back of Lavender’s hand. She dropped them back against the bed, between the dip where their thighs were resting against one another.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“I always will,” she promised.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing like two girls sticking together

**Author's Note:**

> this came out of nowhere after [a random post](http://parvatispatils.tumblr.com/post/147065698986/ok-but-like-parvati-is-a-lesbian-and-lavender) about them being together. i just....love them.
> 
> title from [only a girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRIzDQEB1mk) by gia.
> 
>  
> 
> xoxox

**i. first year**

 

          Parvati didn’t see her for the first time on the train, or milling in the entrance hall waiting to be let inside for the Sorting, or during dinner, or on the walk up to Gryffindor Tower later that night. No, the first time Parvati saw her was when she was stripping for bed right beside the trunk that had been brought up for her, and she heard the door open and somebody squeaked, “Oh no, I’m so—I’m sorry!”

          Parvati whirled around, clutching her pajama pants to her legs, standing there in just her shirt and her underthings. The girl by the door had her hands over her eyes and she was flushed red, half-turned away from Parvati and her undress.

          “It’s okay,” Parvati said calmly, although her cheeks were pink too. She tugged on her pants. “I should have known to lock the door or something. It’s okay to look now, you know.”

          Tentatively, the other girl lowered her hands from her face. She was still blushing, quite clearly. Parvati offered a small smile.

          “I’m Parvati,” she said, extending her hand out towards the girl. She hesitated, but when she clasped her hand in Parvati’s, her grip was small and sure and strong. “Patil.”

          “Lavender Brown,” said the girl, shaking Parvati’s hand and then letting go. She crossed her arms like she was cold, but there was no breeze; maybe she was still just embarrassed from before. “Where are the other girls in our dorm? There’s more, right?”

          There were only two other trunks by two other beds, other than Parvati’s. One of them had to be Lavender’s.

          “I think there’s just one, that I remember,” said Parvati. “Um, bushy hair…kind of talky? I don’t remember anyone else getting called for Gryffindor. That’s a girl, I mean.”

          “Right,” said Lavender. Her wandering gaze had landed on Parvati again. She blushed when Parvati stared steadily back, eyes flicking over towards one of the beds that Parvati’s things weren’t occupying. Parvati stepped back quickly.

          “Go on, unpack,” she said, gesturing towards where Lavender was already looking. “I, um…I won’t look if you want to change.”

          Parvati froze; Lavender cracked a tiny smile at her. In a second, they were both laughing.

          Parvati unpacked a little while Lavender moved around behind her, and she kept her back deliberately turned in case Lavender wanted to change into her pajamas too. By the time she heard the bed squeak and Lavender sigh, Parvati had already unpacked half of her trunk, shoving her books and notebooks into a stack by her trunk, leaving her more precious items in the drawer in the bedside table. When she turned around, Lavender was laying on her bed. Her pajama bottoms were too big, tied tightly around her waist but falling past her toes, and she was in a big t-shirt. She grinned at Parvati, pushing herself up on her hands. Parvati pushed her hair behind her ear.

          “I’m too awake to go to sleep,” said Lavender. “Do you want to stay up and talk for a bit? At least until the other girl gets here?”

          Lavender was looking at her so openly, batting her eyes so earnestly, watching her over her freckle-dusted nose and light pink cheeks. Parvati stepped closer, then all of a sudden, launched herself onto Lavender’s bed. Lavender shrieked. As they bounced in a heap together, landing messy and tangled as the bed shook to stillness again, they both started laughing again, wild and uncontained.

          “Let’s talk,” said Parvati, smile spreading wide.

          Lavender leaned in close. “Let’s,” she agreed.

 

          Sometimes Parvati got the distinct impression that school was easier with Lavender around; she made homework fun (even if they did swap answers too much), and their classes were less stressful with them both messing up spells together.  She wondered if the work might be harder without Lavender there, but then, she really never had the chance to find out.

          Lavender held her hand on the way to breakfast, and they spent lunches laying out on the lawn until the season got too cold, and they spent cold winter evenings huddled by the fire together in the common room. For warmth. Lavender quickly became like safety, and Parvati found that her home away from home wasn’t Hogwarts: It was Lavender.

          When Lavender asked her to visit over summer break, the stress and fear from the year faded away to nothingness, and Parvati said yes right away. They sat in the same compartment on the train ride home. Halfway there, Lavender held up her hand.

          “You won’t get bored of me with two months apart?” said Lavender anxiously.

          “Never,” Parvati promised, looping her pinkie through the one that Lavender proffered. “We’ll come back better than ever. Plus, we’ll see each other all the time. You’re coming to stay with us in July, right?”

          “Right,” said Lavender, looking nonetheless relieved. “Best friends.”

          Parvati tightened her finger’s grip. “Best friends,” she agreed.

          Even when they dropped their hands from the air, their pinkies stayed threaded the whole way home.

 

 

 

**ii. second year**

 

          Her second year at Hogwarts was easier than her first; she had the lay of the castle from the go (mostly—there wasn’t a lot that she could do to memorize all the ways that Hogwarts changed on a day to day basis, like the shifting of the stairs or the movements of the passageways) and she had friends already from every House (just one friend from Slytherin was still a friend from Slytherin) and so she was not at all nervous as she stepped off the train, linked her arm through Lavender’s, and boarded a carriage with her.

          Her classes that year were harder, although more interesting for that. She did well, and people liked her, and things were fine.

          Then the petrifications started.

          “We’re not cattle,” Parvati complained to Lavender one day, when they were sitting outside on a group of stones that seemed thrown together haphazardly, but which made for excellent seats on which to chat. “We don’t have to be herded from class to class like this. Why can’t the teachers just leave us alone for _one second_?”

          It was true; with the rash of attacks going around the school, students weren’t allowed out anywhere on their own. Even pairs like theirs were regarded as too reckless.

          Lavender shrugged. “It’s just how it is,” she said. “Besides, I don’t really mind it so much. The thought of going out alone gives me the creeps anyway.”

          Parvati sighed, kicking idly at a rock in front of her. She cast her gaze outwards, towards the Black Lake which could be seen in the distance, over the hills of the grounds.

          “I guess,” she mumbled. “Just think, though. We can’t sneak down for pastries after dinner anymore. We can’t go out and have late night talks up in the Astronomy Tower anymore. We’re just, like…stuck. In Gryffindor Tower. With our entire House.”

          Lavender wrinkled her nose. “We can’t go meet up with boys are dark anymore, either,” she fretted.

          Parvati just looked at her. “We never did that,” she said.

          Lavender shook her head like Parvati was entirely missing the point. “So? Now we can’t even if we, you know, could. What would you do if we snuck out and ran into whoever’s been petrifying everyone, huh?”

          Parvati breathed in deep, swelling up her chest like she had muscles there instead of just air, and she put her arm up like she was flexing her bicep.

          “I’d fight them off,” she said bravely. “I’m a Gryffindor, for Merlin’s sake! We both are!”

          Lavender laughed. “We can’t fight somebody _that_ powerful, Parv,” she said, rolling her eyes.

          “Why not? You don’t think I could take them?”

          Parvati was laughing too though, throwing fake punches out for Lavender to bat away with her hands.

          “Oh, you definitely could,” Lavender said. “You’re so big and so strong—”

          “Shut up,” Parvati said when it became clear that Lavender was definitely just making fun of her. She dropped her arms. “What would _you_ do if there was an attack?”

          “Run and hide,” said Lavender. They both cracked up laughing again.

          “You don’t deserve to be in Gryffindor,” Parvati snorted.

          “Better a bad Gryffindor than a dead Gryffindor,” Lavender shot back.

          Parvati just rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said. “At least _I’d_ stay and try to protect you. But if you want to leave me for dead…”

          “No way,” said Lavender quickly. She had changed all of a sudden, like she was worried that Parvati really believed whatever teases she was throwing out. She grabbed Parvati’s hand and squeezed it hard. “I’d stay and fight with you. Always.”

          Parvati smiled gently. “I’m just kidding,” she said, kicking out at Lavender’s ankles. Quieter, she added, “I know you would. We could be big old heroes together.”

          Lavender grinned. “Plaques in the trophy room,” she said.

          “Graves side by side.”

          “No way,” said Lavender, shaking her head. Her hair whipped against her face as she did, tickling Parvati’s cheek when it brushed there. She giggled. “We’d be buried in the same grave, definitely.”

          “Nobody does that,” said Parvati. She was still holding Lavender’s hand.

          “Well, we would,” said Lavender. “We’d be remembered as the best friends that ever lived, and they would have to celebrate us every year for loving each other so much.”

          “There would be a parade in our honor,” said Parvati, grinning again.

          “Songs would be sung about us!” said Lavender, throwing her free hand up into the air like she was rejoicing. “Poems would be written!”

          Parvati broke down laughing, and Lavender soon joined in. Parvati felt warmed by more than just the sun, sitting there by her side.

          “Best friends,” Parvati whispered as they settled.

          Lavender bumped her shoulder into Parvati’s.

          “Forever,” she agreed.

 

 

 

**iii. third year**

 

          Third year came in like a rush of wind. Mostly Parvati remained in awe that she had ever made it this long at school. It felt like she had only been there for a couple of months, but it had been _two years_. She felt like she had gained status just by making it to third year, and everything was brighter and shinier for it. She was older than two-sevenths of the students, which seemed a big fraction to her. She knew most of the people and had gained the respect of most of the teachers, save for the ones who reproached her for too much talking more than they admired her for her work ethic. She could even go to Hogsmeade this year, which felt like a kind of badge of status, the reward for a litmus test she had finally passed. She was a real Hogwarts student. The odds of fluking her way through _two_ years was just insane.

          Everything was wonderful. The only thing that Parvati didn’t like was Blaise Zabini.

          “Stop it!” she shouted down the corridor one day in late January. The hallway was mostly empty, but those that were there turned to stare. Parvati didn’t care, her hands balling into fists and her hair flying around. Lavender put a placating hand on her arm, but Parvati ignored her.

          Blaise raised his eyebrows at her.

          “What?” he taunted. “I’m all the way over here. I’m not _doing_ anything.”

          “You’re going to!” she raged, tears stinging her eyes as they formed. “You’ve been doing this _all year_! Stop following me, stop hexing me, just _stop it_!”

          Blaise’s laughter, however harrowing, was somewhat comforting as Parvati took off down the corridor. It at least let her know that he was very far behind her.

          Lavender caught up with her in the Gryffindor common room, where Parvati had taken refuge in a corner. She was sitting on the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest. She knew she looked like she had been crying, and she turned her face away from Lavender.

          “Don’t,” she said, her chin trembling. “I hate him. I hate him so much.”

          “He’s awful,” Lavender agreed immediately.

          She sat down next to Parvati on the floor, all gangly limbs and incoordination. She moved like someone going through puberty might when they weren’t aware of all their new body just yet, even though Lavender was still too young to have hit that stage. She was just always like that, graceless. Parvati giggled, feeling a little better already.

          “Boys are the worst,” Parvati groused, wiping her hand across her cheeks to catch the last of the stray tears. “Why does he always act like that?”

          “My mom says that’s just how boys are,” Lavender said. “It means they like you or something. Get it? Because they’re bothering you, so you’re thinking about them. It’s all mind games that they play with you.” She tapped the side of her head with her forefinger. Then she giggled. “Mom says they never stop playing mind games, they just get weirder and better at them.”

          Parvati sighed. “I don’t get it,” she said. “Why would I ever want to be with someone who was mean to me like that? It just makes me _furious_.”

          “Boys are stupid,” Lavender said sagely. “The point is that you love them anyway.”

          Parvati felt as though she was sorely missing the point. She just felt angry, and even when she searched deep down, her feelings for Blaise never got muddled by anything else. She sighed and gave up, stretching her legs out straight on the floor.

          “Girls aren’t mean like that,” Parvati said. “Why can’t they just act like girls? Instead of pulling my hair and following me and stuff, he can just do what you do. You know, like, hold my hand and treat me nice.”

          Lavender shrugged. “If boys acted like girls, then they wouldn’t be boys. I guess we just have to, like, get over it.”

          “I don’t want to get over it,” Parvati said. She felt sulky crossing her arms over her chest like that, but she did it anyway.

          Lavender laughed, patting Parvati’s knee.

          “Well, you’ll have to,” she said. “That’s just how things are.”

          Parvati pouted. “Why can’t you and me just get married, Lav?” she said. “Then we’d never have to deal with dumb stupid boys ever again.”

          Lavender laughed as she put her arm around Parvati’s shoulders.

          “We can be like Arthur and Guinevere!” she said. “Meant to be! Together til the end of time! Or, I mean, until we meet boys who aren’t obnoxious anymore.”

          At last, Parvati stifled a smile into Lavender’s shirt. She smelled nice, reminding Parvati of warmth and safety. She would stay hugging Lavender forever if she could. The thought was calming, so unlike the rushing fear and fury at the thought of Blaise’s relentless and strange pursuit. Wrapped up close to Lavender, Parvati felt nearly invincible.

          “We’ll be together forever, then,” she said, liking the words as they came. “No one will ever be as cool and nice as Arthur was.”

          Lavender grinned down at her. “Forever,” she repeated, like she was tasting how the word felt in her mouth. She pressed her lips together like she found it sweet. “That would be a dream.”

 

 

 

**iv. fourth year**

 

          The thing about Christmas was that it was always bright and shiny at Hogwarts, but Parvati had never gotten the opportunity to see it. Her parents always wanted her home to spend it with their family (extended included), but this year—with the Triwizard Tournament going on—Parvati and Padma had both been given permission to stay over break, just this one year, special.

          “You have to stay,” Parvati immediately begged of Lavender. “I’m _finally_ going to see the castle over holidays! You have to be here to see it with me.”

          “It’s not me who might not let me,” Lavender fretted, “it’s my mother. You know what she’s like.”

          Parvati did know. Lavender’s mother, while a warm and loving woman, had only Lavender and her two (much younger) sisters at home. Family time was very important to her, and neither Parvati nor Lavender liked the odds of asking for her to stay over break.

          By some miracle, though, Ms Brown did concede that Lavender could stay—provided that she come home for Easter holiday. Lavender, of course, agreed immediately; and the two of them celebrated their small victory with elf-made wine they had gotten from the kitchens, drinking until their cheeks were rosy and they were leaning too close, their foreheads bumping together. Parvati could smell Lavender’s perfume on her even after she went to bed, wrapped up in sheets that did not dispel the memory of Lavender’s laughter by her ear, Lavender’s hair brushing Parvati’s shoulder. She shivered, blaming the window left open that was letting in the winter chill.

          When news of the Yule Ball began to permeate the castle grapevine, Parvati knew immediately. Only fourteen, she was not particularly expectant to have suitors. But when Lavender was asked by Seamus Finnegan—when she accepted—Parvati was faced with a crushed feeling that she did not, immediately, attribute to her expectations of going with Lavender.

          “I just need a date,” she bemoaned at breakfast the morning after, when Lavender had come back giggling and pink-cheeked and definitely kissing and telling. “Come on, Lav, he has to have a friend or something. Other than Dean, who’s _also taken_.”

          “You can’t just go with _anyone_ ,” Lavender said exasperatedly, the flush of being wanted still bright on her face.

          “Oh, yes I can,” said Parvati. “I’m pretty, aren’t I?”

          She was pouting slightly. Lavender nodded immediately.

          “Of course you are,” she said, “very, very pretty. But that’s why you need somebody _good_. What about Ernie?”

          “Macmillon?” Parvati said, nausea roiling in her stomach at the thought of being close enough with him to dance, maybe kiss. “No way. Besides, he’s like, _obsessed_ with Hannah.”

          Lavender pouted in sympathy. “We’ll find someone,” she said. She brushed her hand through Parvati’s hair, and it felt nice; Parvati tilted her head closer, and Lavender began raking her fingers through it in earnest.

          But they did not find someone. So when Harry Potter came up to her, adjusting his crooked glasses, unkempt but cute but strange, she agreed with startled eyes and said she could, perhaps, ask her sister to take Ron too, so they could go together. It would be easier, after all, with someone close by her side.

 

          The dance was bright and luminous, and Parvati’s hand was cold with sweat in Harry’s.

          “Don’t leave me,” she’d hissed through her teeth at Lavender when they had arrived, but Lavender had only shrugged helplessly and been swept away to find seats with Seamus and the group of friends he had brought along like anchors.

          Parvati only saw peeks of her throughout the night; there, dancing so close, his hand on her waist; there, their elbows linked as they laughed and tried to sip drinks like that, all twisted and crossed; there, behind a pillar, kissing him with that pink flush on her cheeks that made Parvati blush. She was angry; that was hers, that flush that Lavender got when she laughed, when she was mad, when she walked in on Parvati at eleven years old changing in their dorm. Seamus had no right to it. She had never disliked Seamus—they were friends, even—but she felt angry towards him now as she never had.

          Parvati got asked to dance by a boy from Beauxbatons. Harry was paying her no mind, and so she went with him. She didn’t remember his name two seconds later, just that his hands felt cold on her hips and he kept trying to kiss her, but he had a friend for Padma too so she swallowed hard and danced with him, tasting bile the whole time. When she did see glimpses of Lavender throughout the night, she was not looking at her. Parvati’s stomach felt like a stone. When the boy asked her to Hogsmeade the following weekend, Parvati said yes.

 

          “I don’t know why you’re still with him, Parv,” Lavender said, twirling some lasagna around and around her fork. “You’re obviously bored of him.”

          “Marc is perfectly nice,” said Parvati, tilting her chin up at her friend. She squinted at her. “Why, are you jealous?”

          “Of you?” Lavender snorted. “You know I could have dated Seamus if I’d wanted, babe. We just weren’t meant to be more than friends—besides, he’s so obviously into Dean.”

          Parvati snorted. If even Lavender saw it, it really must be obvious. Of course, they had always had the same proclivity for good gossip.

          “Anyway, I’m just saying,” Lavender pressed on. “‘Nice’ isn’t exactly something you call someone you’re very into, and it’s been _months_. It’s almost the end of term. It’s cruel to drag him on if you’re just going to dump him before the summer starts. He should have a chance to dip more into Hogwarts waters before he goes home for the summer. Unless you do want to take this long-term?”

          Lavender raised one eyebrow at Parvati. She had just began plucking them, and it was filed into a perfect arch, and Parvati’s gaze lingered on the point for just a moment before she searched the rest of her face: her eyes, the soft bump of her button nose, the downturn of her mouth. The downturn of her mouth.

          “I don’t,” said Parvati quickly. She sighed. “I’ll break it off with him.”

          Lavender looked almost proud.

          “Good,” she said, sounding more happy than she should have.

          Parvati squinted at her again. “Good,” she repeated.

          Their gazes held for another long moment. Then Lavender went back to twirling her fork through her lasagna.

          “Good,” Lavender said again. “So, I was thinking: Do you think McGonagall really will test us on Switching Spells for the exam?”

          Parvati sighed. “We can go over that when we study later,” she said.

          Lavender smiled, then quickly turned back to her dinner like she was trying to hide it. Parvati watched the side of her face for a long moment before going back to her plate as well.

 

 

 

**v. fifth year**

 

          There was something about Angelina Johnson. She flirted well enough with the boys, but then sometimes there was something—just a flicker of her eyes, or a flip of her hair—and Parvati knew that there was also something more beneath the surface, and she wanted to find out what.

          Lavender did not seem quite so interested in Parvati’s increasingly vested interest in Angelina. In fact, she seemed to get bored as soon as Parvati mentioned her name nowadays.

          “Yes, I know,” Lavender drawled at breakfast one morning, spearing an egg with her fork with more force than necessary. “She’s so beautiful and smart and whatever, whatever. Why is it _so_ important to you that you’re friends with her?” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not trying to snake your way onto the Quidditch team, are you?”

          “No!” Parvati said, cheeks hot. “She’s just…She’s cool, alright? I want to get to know her. She seems like she would have some really good insight on stuff I’m interested in.”

          “Like what?” Lavender snorted. She waved her hand before Parvati could fumble up an answer. “Whatever, just…She hangs out with the Weasley twins a lot, and I have no interest in getting in trouble. Keep me out of it.”

          “You already were,” Parvati groused.

          But something about Lavender’s apathy towards the whole thing niggled at her, growing into frustration when Lavender continued not to care about Parvati’s new friend. It did not, however, stop her from hanging out more and more with Angelina, nor from thinking about her with increasing regularity.

          One night after an evening spent studying together in the library, Angelina stopped her with a hand on her shoulder right before Parvati left for the night. She darted her eyes around the empty library for a moment, then swooped down and kissed Parvati. It was brief, but Angelina tasted of mangoes and smelled like her perfume mixed with raspberry shampoo. Parvati fell asleep with her fingers on her mouth and her mind a whirl.

 

          She kept hanging out with Angelina, and they kept kissing. Lavender never grew more or less interested in what Parvati did when she disappeared all night, just began talking to her like normal whenever Parvati returned to their dormitory for the evening. It was kind of irritating, in a strange way that Parvati couldn’t place. She felt, privately, that Lavender should have cared more about her life. She felt, with both relief and consternation that she didn’t seem to know what was going on, that Lavender should have known what was happening with her long before it ever began.

 

          Eventually, things petered down between Angelina and Parvati. They still hung out, but less so, and they did less heated things when they were together. More often they really did just study or hang out, and less often did they kiss or do more. Parvati didn’t mind. She had more pressing matters bothering her, like OWLs. Lavender’s apathy towards her private life tapered as Parvati and Angelina cooled down, and soon she was asking questions about what Parvati did and where she went again, in the way that best friends always do.

          “Are you seeing anyone?” Lavender asked, near the end of term and just before exams were beginning.

          Parvati thought about how the last time she had taken her clothes off for Angelina had been when they were both drunk after a Hogsmeade trip, over a month before. She thought about Angelina’s laugh, and how the sound made her heart stutter less than it used to. She thought about how she and Angelina made very good friends.

          “No,” she said honestly.

          That was that.

 

 

 

**vi. sixth year**

 

          “I don’t understand why you’re so _mad_ ,” Lavender raged. Her hair was in disarray, frizzy and spilled out all around her head. Her face was deeply red, her hands balled into fists. Parvati felt dizzy.

          “Ron’s all wrong for you,” Parvati said. “God, you can’t even _see_ it, can you? He’s _completely_ in love with Hermione—”

          “You’re just mad because of what he did to Padma at the Yule Ball!” Lavender shouted.

          “That was two years ago! I got over that in about five seconds! If you hadn’t noticed, me _and_ Padma both dated Beauxbaton boys after that—”

          Lavender rolled her eyes way too dramatically; Parvati felt like she was hexing her. “Oh, _there_ was a meaningful relationship—”

          “You shut up!” Parvati said. Now her hands were fists too, and she didn’t know what to do with it. In that moment, she hated Lavender fiercely. “You don’t know _anything_ about—”

          “Like you know about me and Ron?” Lavender said. “I actually _care_ about him, unlike you and Marc!”

          “Who said I didn’t care about him? What does that have to do with anything?”

          “You know,” said Lavender, narrowing her eyes at Parvati. “You know.”

          Parvati did know.

          “How _dare_ you.” Her voice sounded cold and distant, so unlike her own. It wasn’t something they talked about. It wasn’t something either of them had ever said aloud. “How dare you try to use that against me. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

          Lavender blushed. “Whatever,” she said, pressing through it. “I don’t really care what you have to say about him. He _loves_ me.”

          “Okay,” Parvati scoffed. “Just remember that when he’s dumping you at the first sign that Hermione might actually give him the time of day.”

          Lavender gaped at her. She was still there gaping at her when Parvati spun around and stormed out of their dormitory, down the stairs, almost bumping into Hermione on the way.

          “Be careful,” she warned, and something in her voice or face made Hermione look startled. “Lavender is being a complete _idiot_ up there!”

          She shouted it loud enough that Lavender could hear; she knew she had, as something slammed upstairs just after. Satisfied, Parvati gave a strangled smile to Hermione and continued her way down into the common room, then out the portrait hole, and down the stairs, and out the door. Away, away, away.

 

          It came with the creaking of their dormitory door. Hermione was out for the night, the way she was so many nights now. Parvati had no illusions about who it was in the room with her. She turned over in her bed, glaring at her bedside table.

          “I’m sorry.”

          She had not expected that. For a moment, she considered not answering, pretending to still be asleep. Then she rolled over onto her back. At length, she sat up.

          Lavender’s form was blurry in the dark. She was backlit slightly in the doorway, and Parvati could see how miserable she looked. Her heart thumped against her chest. They stared at each other for a long time. At last, Parvati sighed and peeled back the covers on her bed, scooting over to the side.

          The rush of breath Lavender let out was audible, and she was across the room in a second. Parvati made more room for her as Lavender climbed into her bed, as smoothly as old times.

          “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I was…You were right.”

          It was then that Parvati recognized the signs, those old tells that Lavender had been crying. She had never worn the look well, her eyes reddening quickly, her cheeks puffy and sad. Parvati’s heart thumped again.

          “Oh, Lav,” she sighed. She put her arm out, around Lavender’s shoulders. Lavender leaned against her immediately, and Parvati could feel the tears beginning to soak through her shirt. “Oh, I never wanted to be right.”

          “I broke up with him,” Lavender hiccupped. “You were right, you were right. It wasn’t me…Not for him.”

          Parvati shushed her, petting her hair and letting Lavender press her face tightly against Parvati’s collarbone. For a long time there was no other sound in their dorm, just her crying, and Parvati’s weak attempts to comfort her. Lavender had never seemed to notice how poorly Parvati consoled others, and she didn’t now either; her tears subsided slowly, and her breathing calmed as though Parvati’s rushed and whispered words were at all soothing.

          “There’s someone for you, Lavender,” Parvati hushed. “You’re gonna be it for someone, I promise. Somewhere out there, someone is going to want to pick you first. Every time.”

          Lavender’s tears had cooled and receded by then. She lifted her head and sighed, that long sigh that she did when she was done with a good cry. Her head fell back against Parvati’s headboard, and she was all pressed up against Parvati’s side still. Her hand found Parvati’s and threaded through it, her fingers warm and trembling.

          “Nobody ever has,” Lavender whispered. “Except…Only you, Parvati. Only you.”

          Parvati’s breathing quavered. She only hoped that Lavender couldn’t hear it. Her heart stuttering, Parvati raised their hands and ventured to press a kiss against the back of Lavender’s hand. She dropped them back against the bed, between the dip where their thighs were resting against one another.

          “I always will,” she promised.

          Lavender sighed. Her head dropped down to lean against Parvati’s shoulder. She could sense how exhausted she was, and although there was much more to discuss—more apologies, more to say, and even more to conceal—Parvati did not press just then.

          “I had no right to say those things to you,” Lavender whispered.

          “Shh,” Parvati said. Her heart warmed. “We can talk it all out in the morning.”

          Lavender nodded sleepily. “Can I stay here tonight?”

          Parvati did not point out that Lavender’s bed was just across the room. She felt warm and whole again with Lavender back at her side, and it was too comfortable squeezed into a bed with her to risk disrupting it with the obvious.

          “Of course you can,” Parvati whispered. “Anytime.”

          They held hands as they shifted to press beneath the covers together, and still stayed entwined as they drifted towards sleep. Strangely, that night Parvati did not hate Ron Weasley for what he had done to Lavender, although she should have. Some part of her surely resented him, but there was more there, beneath the surface. She was glad, distantly, beneath all the heartache and loathing by association, that whatever he had done had brought Lavender back to her bed, and back to her.

 

 

 

**vii. seventh year**

 

          There wasn’t a lot to do in the Room of Requirement. Parvati had felt like she was a _part_ of something while they were still doing missions, when they were sneaking out to graffiti the walls and enact small but beautiful acts of courage. Now, she was stuck in the Room almost all the time, and she was getting bored.

          She and Lavender began sneaking down to Hogsmeade more times than she could count. Aberforth always had a pitcher of mead ready for them to down, and seats always open by the fire where they could lean against one another, and hold hands, and laugh too hard. Parvati began to see that corner of the old Hog’s Head bar as pockets of the past: This is what she could have had. This is who she almost was.

          ‘Almost’ meant a lot to her then. In every brush of their hands; every time Lavender braided her hair; every time her mouth touched the mead glass where Lavender’s had just been; she felt it like liquid shocks through her blood. _Almost, almost, almost_. Parvati would live and die for that word, but she still—even in the midst of a war—wanted _more_.

 

          Parvati lost Lavender very early into the Battle of Hogwarts. She nearly forgot about her, too busy fighting and fighting and fighting, endlessly in battle. But somewhere in the back of her mind, there pulsed the real fear that Lavender hadn’t made it. There lived the everlasting flame that pushed Parvati on and on and on, even when all she wanted was to lay down, to stop fighting. Lavender was alive somewhere, she had to be. And Parvati had to get back to her.

 

          Parvati had always cared for people. It was why, after the battle was over, she lingered in the great hall. There were over fifty of them, laid out on the floor where she had eaten and laughed and played. The hall looked smaller in the dappled morning light, grey and aged, used and strange. Parvati wandered the row of the dead, giving out the names of those still unidentified when she could, blinking down at others where she couldn’t. She covered some with sheets. She led families to their loved ones where they lay. She didn’t speak if she could help it.

          Parvati paused partway through her ritualistic-like wandering to look down at one girl in particular. She didn’t know her; she looked young, too young for Parvati to have ever spoken to. Like so many others, she must have snuck back into the castle for the fight. And now here she lay: small, only twelve or thirteen, half-covered by a sheet.

          Parvati felt fingers threading through her own. She looked up.

          “Lavender,” she breathed.

          It was the first thing she had said in over an hour. Lavender swallowed, and Parvati followed the movement down her throat. A strangled sob worked its way into Parvati’s chest, and with a gasp, Parvati threw herself into Lavender’s arms.

          It was like a living thing in her, her relief. She didn’t know how long they stood there, clutching at each other in the middle of all this grief, all this decimation. She just knew that she began crying at some point and now she couldn’t stop. She knew that Lavender pulled away and joined their hands again. She knew that Lavender led her away, and she knew that she let her.

          She followed Lavender all the way out onto the grounds. There was a footbridge that led over a small fish-filled pond, on the far side of the castle from the Black Lake. Lavender led her there and they sat on the edge of the bridge together. The morning sun dried the tears from Parvati’s cheeks, and they swung their legs into the water together, shoes and all. Parvati’s robes were torn, but it was nothing to the obvious injuries that Lavender faced. It was clear in the way she moved, her hand clutching her side and her face screwed up, in how she limped, in how her breathing shuddered.

          “They gave me a potion to bring me to consciousness,” Lavender explained. She paused, and then dipped her head and ruefully admitted, “I should go to the hospital later.”

          She said it so blankly, so matter-of-factly, that Parvati’s laughter hiccupped out of her. A few more tears spilled down her cheeks. Lavender was laughing too.

          “You probably should,” she agreed, nodding vigorously.

          Lavender’s hand was still in hers, and she squeezed. Parvati didn’t know how to begin to leak the things inside of her; they roiled and raged, demanding exit. Lavender was serenity, a force holding it all back, keeping Parvati quiet and near-still. Lavender was the calm before the storm. Parvati wanted to live in it.

          “I didn’t know if you were…”

          “I know,” Lavender whispered, “but I am. I am.”

          Parvati looked at her for a long time. Then it spilled out of her: her emotions that she couldn’t keep in check released just one of them, the biggest and strongest of them, tumbling it out into the world.

          “I’m in love with you,” Parvati blurted. Lavender just blinked at her. She looked as radiant as ever, even so war-torn and sad as she was. Parvati swallowed around her thick, heavy tongue. “I’m…I love you. I have, for like…a very long time.”

          Parvati could not look at her, gaze skittering to the side. Now that the words were out there, she could not take them back. But Lavender squeezed her hand, and when Parvati looked up, her smile was soft and warm.

          “I know,” Lavender said. She sounded calm and knowing, like the facts spelled out before her were something she had known all along. Parvati was in love with Lavender, and that was just the way of things. “Parv, I’m…I love you too.”

          Parvati froze, her mouth going dry. She had not expected that—even in confessing this thing that had lived with her for so long, she had not expected to have it returned to her. And when Lavender gave, she gave in spades.

          Parvati opened her mouth, trying to make more words come, but now that she wanted to release something spectacular, all her screaming thoughts seemed to have disappeared.

          “You do?”

          Lavender nodded vigorously.

          “You’re it for me, Parvati,” she said.

          Parvati swallowed. “I…You too,” she promised. “Forever.”

          It was like breathing, so easy it was to lean forward to kiss her hard. Parvati wanted to give Lavender all the love she had never had. She wanted her to know that she was it, really, and Parvati wanted to pick her first, every time. All the time.

          Kissing Lavender was even better than Parvati had imagined, in those half-dreams she had when she wasn’t quite sleeping but not yet awake either. She was all the things that Parvati had never allowed herself to hope for. She filled all the spaces that had not perfectly cemented back together every time Parvati tried to break herself down for somebody else—for the Harrys and the Marcs and all the other boys she had wanted to love. Lavender didn’t ask her to break herself down; she wanted to help fill Parvati back up. Kissing her felt like that, like falling in love all over again.

          When they pulled away, Lavender looked like Parvati had just sewn her back together, too. She was luminous in the early morning. The sun rising above them turned her hair golden, and her pink cheeks shone. Parvati’s heart was racing in her chest again, but she was not afraid. For the first time, she was not afraid.

          Lavender’s eyes were still closed.

          “It’s okay to look now,” Parvati whispered. She pressed her lips together, trying not to giggle. “This isn’t a dream.”

          “It feels like one,” Lavender whispered back, but she opened her eyes. Her smile grew, and she was looking like something enchanting. Parvati swallowed with her heart in her throat.

          The words would not come, so Parvati kissed her again. Then again, and again, and soon she was as warm as the sunlight pressing against her face wanted her to be, even though it would not quite reach the cold spot inside her (it would always be there, she thought, she had seen too much, too much had happened). But wrapped in Lavender’s arms and her love, Parvati felt warm. They only stopped kissing, giggling fiercely, when they teetered on their precarious spot on the footbridge and threatened to topple over.

          “What do we do now?” Lavender hiccupped. She sounded close to tears again.

          They were leaning so close, their foreheads nearly touching. Parvati could have counted each one of Lavender’s freckles, or her eyelashes wet with tears. Instead she brushed Lavender’s hair behind her ear. She smiled easily at her.

          “Whatever we want,” she told her solemnly. “It’s over, Lavender. We can go home.”

          Lavender pressed her palm into Parvati’s, raising their hands into the air until they were floating between them. She curved her fingers into the spaces between Parvati’s and kissed the join of their palms.

          “I already am,” she said.

          When Parvati looked at her, she was still aglow with the early morning light. Parvati’s heart expanded. There was so much pain and misery behind her, the battle still fresh in her mind, her losses evident, her injuries real. Lavender had barely escaped with her life; so many people hadn’t been quite so lucky. They had loved ones to notify, and others to bury, and so many, many funerals ahead of them. But they were alive. Their pulses were beating, writhing. And they were here with one another.

          “Yeah,” Parvati agreed. Her heart thumped in her chest. “Yeah, we’re already home.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me at [freyias](http://freyias.tumblr.com/post/147902411885) for more soft girl love *:・ﾟ


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